MarkM

Eh. Look Reach Pull Look Reach Pull Was what I was taught and sure is a hell of a lot easier to remember. Discard? Locate? How about "PULL THE GODAMN HANDLE!!!". Are we really gonna have students dying because they followed the "PULL THE GODAMN HANDLE!!!" emergency procedure when they had a mal?

On the non-DB systems I think it attaches to the pilot chute via velcro and pulls it out. Dunno if/how it pulls the pin. I guess the advantage would be that you don't have to use a special D bag and packers don't have to change the way they pack to accomodate a different bag. I've jumped both SL systems and while I wouldn't call the non-DB SL system "unsafe", I preferred the DB system. Tandem, SL, IAD, AFF, direct bag, non-direct bag, ripcord or BOC, SOS or two handle system, one hand on each reserve handle or two hands on each reserve handle: are all very safe provided they're done correctly. All are dangerous if not done correctly. I wouldn't choose a DZ based on what they do as much as how they do it.

Jeez, it ain't skydiving unless you're packed all up in a small confined space groping each other on the way to altitude. Look at it this way. After 20 mins or so being cramped up in a C206 you'll be so relieved to jump out of that sucker you'll forget to be nervous about skydiving.

Well... 1. More DZs have used SL than AFF, particularly when you go a year or two back. 2. You can put quite a few more people through a SL program at a DZ than AFF. One Saturday my DZ up in Goshen IN put out 21 first jump students. Classes larger than 10 weren't uncommon and this wasn't a very large DZ. They had two small planes and three instructors. The only fatalities I've heard of with SL is when a student grabs the pilot chute of their main when the tether pulls it out as they leave the plane and they don't let it go. And even that can be avoided if you use a direct bag system. Past that you're dealing with a newbie under a good or bad canopy which is the same whether you're using AFF or SL.

They just keep throwing you out of the plane until you figure it out. 1. There's less pressure on the instructors and fewer instructor qualifications are needed. 2. The SL training method works well with the way non-turbine planes get to altitude. 3. Since students are exiting alone, you can drop them off on the way to altitude: makes it easy to squeeze them in on a load. 4. One instructor can oversee several students on a single load. 5. Even in heavy cloud cover, you might be able to get some students out. 6. SL does a good job teaching students to be self reliant and builds self confidence. 7. Each jump past the first one is pretty cheap. Things bad about SL: 1. It's not cost effective with turbine aircraft designed to get to altitude fast. 2. It's a very difficult way to learn stability. 3. It has a high dropout rate(see point 2). 4. It tends to be a little more expensive than AFF in the long run, because usually more jumps are repeated by the student. Personally I've done 17 SL method jumps and will be finishing up doing AFF after I put in some tunnel time. After 17 jumps doing SL I probably have less freefall time than a student who's finished his level 1 AFF, although I was trained on two difference deployment systems(throw out and chest ripcord) and did some repeats because of that. But the difference between myself and an AFF kid is I'm probably a lot more confident in my ability to jump out of any plane, anywhere, anytime and be able to deploy my main(using just about any system) at altitude and land it safely pretty much anywhere. But just don't expect me to do it gracefully.

$14,500??? And I thought skydiving was an expensive sport.

You go on being cool while I chill out down in Fort Lauderdale and go in late every morning to my "geek" job in Boca Raton. Then keep on thinking you're cool while you and your buds cruise the local mall for babes while my friends and I party out on Las Olas or South Beach(and if you've never been here on a holiday you couldn't begin to imagine how much of a party goes on down here). Stay cool while I'm cruising Bermuda and the Carib in my yacht. Remain cool as I retire early and move down the BVI's in the above boat. Personally I prefer the tropics.

Ahh no. ID won't be writing Quake 4 in Java anytime soon. I do agree most desktop apps can be done in Java, Python or a language that isn't a speed hog. Especially when you consider that your avergae Python/Java/php/perl app takes about a third the time to write and will have fewer errors. Couldn't agree more. Perl's text handling abilities rock. I use perl's regular expressions to take "human readable" data and convert it into tables that I import into databases for my software. If I can read a sheet of data and understand it, odds are I can write a perl script that can process the information for me automatically. But trying to use all those perl modules gives me a headache, so it's use has never gone farther than a "support" language for me. But the biggest thing that keeps me away from Java is that it's too strongly typed. After you've done php and perl for a few years it's hard to go back to a language that artificially forces structures onto your work. Yeah, Java's exception handling creates robust programs. But it's a pain in the ass having to "catch" errors everytime you want to leave the crib.

Don't really care for them. My next machine will be an Athalon, they're best on price vs performance IMHO. That ever assumes I need to upgrade from my dual 400 celeron system.

Perl is good stuff. It's my "we can do that" language.

Hehe, that's a good one. I'm suprised VI and Emacs are tied right now. Don't you VI guys realize it isn't a real text editor if it doesn't take 20 minutes to load on a P4 1.5 Ghz machine?

Ooooommmmm. Ooooommmmm. Ooooommmmmm. Is it there yet?

Which Editor? Emacs Vi Huh?

Web: php and perl Game engines: C or C++ Desktop apps: C or C++ Cross platform desktop app: C or C++ using a cross plat GUI lib Cross platform desktop, rapid dev'd: Python Heavy text processing: perl Middleware app that needs to talk to different databases: okay, Java Want a cross platform GUI? Fox, WxWindows, QT, GTK, TK, SDL are all portable with multiple language bindings. Some could be a little more mature(GTK), others are very mature(QT, WxWindows), none suffer the write once debug everywhere Java syndrome. I studied Java when it first came out, was the first guy in line to buy the first IDE for it(Symantec Cafe), bought about 30 Java books(most by O'rielly), even took the cert exams, but I've never found a use for the language that some other language couldn't do better and faster(speed as in dev time). Check out Python if you're not tied to RAD environments.

Naw, I like to use the best tool for the right task is all. I just never found the right task for Java. Too bad too, for about 2 or 3 years I was really wanting to write something in that damn language.

Java is the greatest language I've never found a production use for.

Usenet has always had a high signal to noise ratio. About the only thing it's good for these days is downloading massive amounts of porn and pirating software or movies. Not that I'm familiar with either, mind you, it's just what I've heard and all, you know....

Stall the canopy :) If it's a student-use canopy you'll need to grab some extra steering line to stall it(most DZs lengthen the steering lines on student rigs so student don't accidently stall on a flare), but it's a lot of fun to look up and watch your canopy collapse in on itself. And it's perfectly safe as long as you do it at a high atlitude and you keep an eye on your pilot chute(when you unstall it can flip over onto the front of the canopy, just stall again and flip it back if it bothers you). Also be prepared for end cell closures. Probably. Although I don't know if I'd want to do anything that could kick me up into my lines. Ask your instructor. The way I figure it, radical canopy flying up high might mean a reserve ride some time in my life. But learning how my canopy works in those conditions might very well save my life someday when I'm down low.

Hey PLF, long time no see. Unfortunately I live in the south part of FL, so there are ZERO places near me to handglide(nothing but swamp swamp swamp around here). So just go for me, because that's something I've always wanted to try.

Sounds like he has all the important details worked out.

Speed: Here's the old ordering link:http://www.pe.net/~reimbold/menu.htm Couldn't find anything more recent.

I like the scared shitless t-shirts.

Damn. Glad to see you fought your way in. So how many beers do you owe?

Nope. I don't imagine any chick I met would expect me to become a shoe shopping fiend just because we're dating, so I don't really expect any woman I'm with to pick up on my hobbies. I'd rather date an interesting girl than a girl that would just go along with my interests.

I went through and read all the fatality incidents before I jumped and I'm in the sport. Maybe those people that decide not to jump after reading about a couple fatalities shouldn't be jumping?